This year, the WFMT Radio Network Opera Series features great performances by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, LA Opera, San Francisco Opera, OperaDelaware, Opera Southwest, and an especially exciting partnership with the BBC and the European Broadcasting Union to bring operas from The Royal Opera, Roundhouse, Scottish Opera, Opera North, and Glyndebourne.

This weekend, the Concord Chorale kicks off its fiftieth season with the music of Mozart. They'll be performing along with the Philips Exeter Concert Choir and Chamber orchestra as well as professional soloists from New Hampshire and the Boston area. NHPR's Peter Biello dropped by a rehearsal and has this report.

Composer Amy Beach was born in Henniker in 1867. By the time she was 29 she was famous the world over for being the first American woman to write a symphony.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of her birth, the University of New Hampshire has been honoring Amy Beach with a series of special performances. NHPR’s Sean Hurley recently visited the school to learn more about the composer - and her music.

The Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble will celebrate women composers Saturday night with a concert featuring works exclusively by female artists. The show, titled “Music, She Wrote…,” is one of several social-justice oriented performances this season at the Hopkins Center for the Arts.

This weekend, the music of composer Amy Beach will echo throughout UNH’s campus during a two-day event timed to celebrate her 150th birthday.

Beach, who was born in Henniker in 1867, is often referred to as ‘the Dean of American Women Composers.’ At a time when women were often limited to writing parlor songs and other light fare, UNH Professor Peggy Vagts says Beach was a trailblazer, composing complicated, bold music.

“She took on really major works. She wrote a mass, wrote a symphony. She was the first American woman to do that,” says Vagts.

To help celebrate the 150th birthday of the Thayer School of Engineering, composer Molly Herron will debut a new piece of music played on student-designed instruments. Herron, 34, has spent the past several months working with students on their creations: from large chimes to string-lined buckets to a heightened take on the musical saw.

Classical NH and Symphony NH are teaming up for a special lunchtime performance! Bring your lunch and join us for an intimate preview of the symphony’s upcoming concerts featuring the music of Smetana and Dvorak. (Full performances to be held April 7 in Concord, April 8 in Nashua, and April 9 in Lebanon, NH.)

Hear classical performances from Tanglewood this summer - live! These special broadcast-only events featuring the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing at the Koussevitzky Music Shed at Tanglewood will air in the Concord area at WCNH 91.5 and WEVO 89.1 HD2. [Streaming content will vary.]

Bach, Beethoven, and Haydn are familiar names, but what about Caccini, Strozzi, and Maconchy? Today, we hear sounds and stories from the forgotten female composers of classical music.

Then, one sales strategy has stood the test of time, making the transition from 1950s house parties to digital media - multilevel marketing, or direct sales. But what might seem like an awkward annoyance is actually changing social dynamics for hundreds of thousands of women.

Why is six scared of seven? Because seven, eight, nine. Jokes like this are only one example of the ways that we humans like to assign personality traits to the numbers that dictate our world. Today, we explore this seemingly universal tendency to create emotional associations with numbers.

Then, is tipping culturally determined? Freakonomics investigates the nuances of tipping in the United States with the help of Cornell professor Michael Lynn.

Plus, Botox is well known for freezing the faces of many a Hollywood starlet, but how about freezing out negative emotions? We hear from journalist Taffy Brodesser-Akner about how Botox is being used to treat depression.

Millennials are obsessing over a show about a group of twenty-somethings living their lives and making mistakes in New York City. No, it isn’t Girls,Broad City – in fact you've probably have seen an episode of this show...or two...or maybe two hundred. Today, the surprise resurgence of Friends.

And from low-brow sitcoms to high-brow performance - at nearly 20 epic hours, Wagner's Ring Cycle is rarely staged outside of the world's premiere opera houses. We'll hear about one man's mission to condense the masterpiece for local audiences.

These broadcast-only events featuring the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing hand-picked listener favorites from the 2014-2015 season will air in the Concord area at WCNH 91.5 and WEVO 89.1 HD2. [Streaming content will vary.]

Hear classical performances from Tanglewood this summer - live! These special broadcast-only events featuring the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing at the Koussevitzky Music Shed at Tanglewood will air in the Concord area at WCNH 91.5 and WEVO 89.1 HD2. [Streaming content will vary.]

Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” were first published in 1741 and consisted of an aria and 30 variations made up of 32 measures each – a sampler of Western dance music enjoyed during his time. In her new collection, New Hampshire Poet Laureate Alice Fogel borrows that structure to invent 30 poems of 32 lines each. The book is called “Interval: Poems Based on Bach’s Goldberg Variations.”

Wednesday’s attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris prompted an international outpouring of support from satirists and comedians around the world. On today’s show, a candid conversation with the former editor of The Onion on the careful craft of satire.

Plus, the manliest man of Russia. A simple Google search reveals countless images of Vladimir Putin, riding horseback, hunting, and brandishing weapons. We’ll talk to a scholar about how the Russian leader uses machismo and gender stereotypes to build political legitimacy.

Bankrupt orchestras, aging audiences, skyrocketing tuition at conservatories; the death knell for classical music in America is sounding again. On today’s show, a concert cellist offers some tough love for the classical music world.

Then we’ll investigate the condiment that brought down an empire. Among the disturbing parallels between America and the fall of Rome: over reliance on one condiment!

Symphony NH, the granite state's oldest professional orchestra, invited 16-year-old harpist Crystal Napoli to solo at two of their performances; an opportunity that is the stuff of dreams for young classical musicians.

The symphony's music director, Jonathan McPhee, extended the invitation to Crystal after seeing her performance as the 2011 winner of the concerto competition at the Manchester Community Music School.

Chalk up another casualty to the economic crisis of 2008…The American Orchestra. Throughout the 1990s, major orchestras grew inside of an economic bubble of their own -- with donors and corporations funding generous contracts for musicians, and underwriting new concert halls and designing ambitious programs to court bigger audiences. That bubble has since burst, exposing some of the nation’s premiere institutions to bankruptcies, foreclosures, lockouts and strikes. Philip Kennicot art and architecture critic for the Washington Post and he wrote about the current crisis facing America’s orchestras for New Republic.